Sator Private Equity Fund aims at creating value by pursuing restructuring and turnaround opportunities in Italy, with a particular focus on the financial services sector. The fund’s team is predominantly a “spin-off” of former members of Capitalia’s successful management team, headed by Matteo Arpe who led one of the most successful turnaround and value creation stories in Europe.

Team

The investment professionals have been working together for the past six years, creating a cohesive and proven team that faced significant managerial challenges and who share the same professional and personal values.
The team is composed of ten professionals with complementary skills across the entire private equity value chain including deal sourcing, execution and structuring, post-acquisition management and finalizing the exit.
The investment decisions are taken by an Investment Committee composed of Giacomo Garbuglia (Chairman of the Committee), Fabio Candeli,
Francesca Sabatini and Maria Rita Scolaro.
The team also includes Francesco Masera and Andrea Biasco.
In addition to its accumulated experience in financial markets, the team has a unique track-record in restructurings in both the financial services and the corporate sectors having been directly involved in some of the most important turnarounds in Italy over the last decade.
The Private Equity team will benefit from the expertise of other professionals in the Sator group in the legal, accounting, tax, governance and management control fields, and in investor relations.

Investment approach and process

Sator seeks investment opportunities where it can “make a difference”. The approach of Sator Private Equity Fund replicates that which the team has successfully applied in the past: namely a rigorous restructuring and hands-on managerial approach aimed to achieve improvements in terms of operational results and growth. Sator believes these are key value drivers in what is a structurally new market characterized by the restricted availability of financial leverage.

Pillars of the investment strategy:

Managerial involvement:

significant expertise in managing complex situations and in achieving change through operational improvements;

access to a pool of external managers and talent to support the management of portfolio company investments, in addition to the direct involvement of investment team members in the most complex situations;

Privileged relationships, industry and country expertise, reputation and credibility will be key to our ability to generate proprietary deal flow;

Ability to identify, seek, and even ‘create’, unique investment opportunities, otherwise unlikely to be available.

Influential Governance

acquisition of controlling or co-controlling stakes in order to ensure the necessary influence to implement strategic, structural, and operational changes;

opportunity to provide entrepreneurs and co-investors with more than just capital: a broad range of strategic and technical skills, in the areas of direct operational management; planning and control; legal, accounting and tax, and financial management.

Sator Private Equity Fund typically expects to pursue 6 to 10 investments, with a particular focus corporate restructurings, on family-owned businesses facing issues related to generational transitions, companies with significantly depressed valuations due to financial turmoil and on opportunities resulting from the current structural dynamics in the financial services sector.